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Republicans have a 'dirty little secret' that will make Trump furious

As President Donald Trump rages over his party’s inability to pass his much-demanded SAVE America Act, Politico reports that congressional Republicans have a “dirty little secret”: many of them don’t want to pass it at all. According to insiders, the “inconvenient truth” is that “it can’t even pass the House — at least not the version Trump is pushing.”

According to Politico, “Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged as much this week, appearing to concede he does not have the votes to move forward with a drastic crackdown on mailed ballots that Trump has repeatedly demanded this year.” Instead, GOP House leaders are reverting to an older version of the bill that focuses on proof of citizenship while otherwise letting states more or less run elections as they please.

“We all do” want to give Trump what he wants, said Johnson, but a ban on mail-in ballots “is a very difficult thing to regulate at the federal level, because different states do it differently.” “I’m going to do everything I can with the vote tallies that we have,” he added.

Hardline conservatives have pushed for an expanded version of the bill, which in addition to the mailed ballot ban would include Trump’s demand for provisions banning transgender people from playing women’s sports, as well as a prohibition on gender-affirming surgery for minors. But Johnson has continued to press a narrower version he thinks is more likely to pass.

As Politico explains, “The lack of widespread GOP support for upending the voting systems in states like Arizona, Florida and Alaska is an open secret on Capitol Hill, where many Republicans credit mailed ballots with helping them win tight races.”

“Listen, absentee ballots are not a bad thing historically as long as you put some kind of structure on it,” said Representative Mark Amodei (R-NV). “Just have some commonsensical safeguards for when it has to be postmarked by.” Last week, after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s attempt to limit mail-in ballots via executive order, Amodei said he was happy with the outcome, asserting, “It says mail-in voting in and of itself is not evil. There ought to be some mechanism for you to do that.”

Outspoken SAVE Act supporter Representative Julie Fedorchak (R-ND) wants the bill to pass in some form, but worries how a ban on mail-in ballots would affect states with limited polling places, saying, “We’re a rural state. I understand the concerns about mail-in voting… but I think the solution that I’m in favor of is restricting it and creating these commonsense reforms for it.”

Johnson seconded her concerns about rural voters, admitting that in some states it can be “very difficult to get to a ballot box, and so they use mail-in ballots very effectively, and I think securely, and that’s something that has to be contended with.”

Unsurprisingly, he tailored his criticism of mail-in ballots to target a few states in particular, claiming, “There are other states that do it well, and without a problem. Our concerns are with the handful, five or six blue states, who abuse this, and California is the avatar for this, because it is so ridiculous.”

Critics of the president’s attacks on mail-in voting and his demands for other electoral restrictions argue that the SAVE Act will disenfranchise millions of voters. What’s more, as a number of GOP insiders have pointed out, the bill could backfire for Republicans, as conservative voters are less likely to have the appropriate ID and more likely to depend on mail-in ballots.

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GOP insider dismantles Trump’s 'dumb' election scam

Over the past several months, President Donald Trump has declared the passage of his voter ID law — called the SAVE American Act — his top legislative priority, saying that he will not sign any other bills until it is passed. Critics have argued that the bill will disenfranchise millions of voters, and that it’s part of Trump’s effort to manipulate the midterm elections in which Republicans are projected to take major losses. But as one top GOP insider has noted, Trump’s bill very well could “hurt” his party in the end.

“There's so much dumb about this fight, but the fact that the SAVE Act might well hurt the GOP electorally is the chef's kiss,” posted former Republican congressional staffer and DOJ lawyer Gregg Nunziata, who is currently the Executive Director at the Society for the Rule of Law.

He made this assertion along with a retweeted screenshot from a Washington Post op-ed published on Monday, in which University of Notre Dame law professor Derek T. Muller argues some of the more practical limitations to Trump’s SAVE Act. Among these, as Nunziata notes, is the fact that a law requiring voter ID could backfire for Republicans.

As Muller writes, “The bill’s design prefers IDs that Democrats tend to have more than Republicans do. It privileges passports, which Democrats own at higher rates than Republicans, and removes concealed carry licenses as permissible ID in several states. The bill also adds paperwork for married women who change their names, who are disproportionately Republicans. And it ends online voter registration for rural — mostly Republican — voters. If Republicans are hoping to gain an electoral edge with this bill, they are sorely mistaken.”

In other words, while the SAVE America Act is Trump’s effort to trim off pesky Democratic voters, it could have the exact opposite effect. The president and his MAGA loyalists are the only ones who don’t seem to realize this, as other Republican lawmakers have made it clear that they would rather SAVE disappear from the discourse.

As Muller’s op-ed elaborated, Republican state lawmakers in places like Texas and Florida are “hardly indifferent to election security, but the bill would tell them their ID laws are inadequate — not because they failed to verify voters, but because they used a different list of IDs.” Texas, for example, has its own voter ID laws that allow the use of recently expired driver's licenses, while Florida allows concealed carry licenses.

And not only would the creation of a standardized ID system across the country be a complicated, disruptive process, but with a consequential midterm election looming, attempting to implement such a complex endeavor could result in massive electoral chaos.

“Election law works best when rules are clear before voting begins,” says Muller. “If the bill passes in its present form, voters from Texas to Florida will be surprised this November that long-standing IDs are no longer acceptable. Lawmakers have not thought through the details of this bill. If Congress wishes to secure elections, it should set reasonable guardrails and allow the states to fill in the gaps.”

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Republicans say Trump’s 'guaranteed death' is coming if he gets his way

While President Donald Trump has been vocal about his desire for his party to nuke the filibuster and force through his sprawling voter ID bill, a number of Republican Senators are presenting a rare show of opposition, arguing that the move would mean “guaranteed death” for the GOP agenda. This is according to political reporter Savannah Behrmann, who writes in Roll Call of the “not-so-secret” society of Republican Senators openly pushing to maintain the filibuster.

“I’m going to make myself a T-shirt that says, 'No, I’m not interested in blowing up the filibuster,'" declared Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). And Senator John Curtis (R-UT) was similarly firm on his position, writing in the Wall Street Journal, "Under no circumstance will I support any effort to end or alter the filibuster, as any party that does so wouldn’t be guaranteed survival. Their agenda would be guaranteed death come the next majority."

Proponents consider the filibuster vital for whichever party happens to be in the minority. Overcoming a filibuster requires a 60 vote majority, which has stymied a number of Trump’s most demanded legislative priorities, including his SAVE Act, which would impose wide-ranging changes on elections across the country. Were Republicans to “nuke” the filibuster by using a procedural maneuver that would allow them to pass bills with a simple majority of 51, it would also open the door for Democrats to do the same when they retake the majority. As a result, Republicans have been open about the fact that there aren’t enough of them who are willing to make such a move.

As Behrmann explains, “For Majority Leader John Thune, the equation is not new: The math isn’t mathing, and there has never been enough support in his conference to establish a new precedent and lower the 60-vote hurdle most bills must clear to advance to a simple majority threshold. Those numbers are hardly a secret, but some are reluctant to take a public stance when it means defying the party’s president. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Politico this summer that more Republicans oppose the so-called nuclear option than are willing to say so. ‘I regret that the other 25 or 30 people who oppose blowing up the filibuster don’t say it out loud like I do, because it leaves the impression that there are only four or five of us, just enough so that he doesn’t have 51,’ Cramer said.”

According to Behrmann, “The fight is not a new one. Both parties have tried to turn the Senate’s rules and practices to their advantage, with Democrats under Majority Leader Harry Reid ending the 60-vote threshold for most presidential nominees in 2013, and Republicans doing the same for Supreme Court nominees in 2017. But the filibuster for legislation has remained intact. In 2017, a bipartisan group of 61 senators, led in part by Susan Collins of Maine, penned a letter urging then-Leader Mitch McConnell to preserve it.”

“We are united in our determination to preserve the ability of Members to engage in extended debate when bills are on the Senate floor,” they wrote. Of that group, more than a dozen of the Republicans are still serving in the Senate today, including Thune.

“That must be a different form of math,” Thune said Wednesday of Trump’s insistence the majority leader has the votes to pass the SAVE America Act.

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Trump loses it as Republicans revolt

On Friday, President Donald Trump “freaked out” in a lengthy Truth Social rant in which he declared that he would not sign a bipartisan housing bill “in PROTEST” of Republicans’ unwillingness to pass his election overhaul legislation.

As the Daily Beast explains, “Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent the bill, passed with bipartisan support, to the president’s desk despite Trump blindsiding GOP leaders on the day of the signing ceremony by canceling the event at the last minute. The move to send the housing bill to the president’s desk set the clock ticking for the legislation to become law with or without his signature.”

Even so, Trump blasted a rambling refusal, posting, “I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, which is polling at 97 percent with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats.”

He went on to declare that failure to pass the act would be “crazy” and “ a serious threat to any politician who votes against it!” He made yet another call to “terminate” the filibuster, which would allow the Senate to pass “this, and every other Bill that true Republicans have ever dreamt of.”

The president continued, claiming that if Democrats retake power, the first thing they'd do is end the filibuster, “and I will no longer be able to call them Dumocrats again! The title of DUMB will revert to the Republicans who allowed this horrible calamity to happen to our Party, and our Nation, itself!”

According to the Daily Beast, “If the president does not sign the bill, it becomes law anyway ten days after it is sent to his desk. The president did not say whether he would veto it, but the legislation, which passed with overwhelming support, has a veto-proof majority.”

The housing bill, called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, is intended to ease the housing affordability crisis, which has become a top issue for Americans across the political spectrum. But when Trump was recently asked by reporters whether he supported the legislation, he said, “It’s a yawn. Some people say it’s wonderful. To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) posted a clip of Trump’s statement to social media, asserting, “He truly doesn’t give a damn about you.”

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The Supreme Court just acted to save the GOP — and to shield themselves from scrutiny

What a happy coincidence for House Republicans that the Supreme Court's conservative bloc found an excuse to help preserve their party's congressional majority, just in time for the 2026 midterm elections. Without the timely intervention of the right-wing justices, a Democratic wave loomed over the White House and Capitol Hill — which threatened not only the plans of the Trump administration but the corrupt conduct of the high court itself.

Masterminded by Chief Justice John Roberts and written by his ideological sidekick Justice Samuel Alito, last week's decision in Louisiana v. Callais not only eviscerated the last remaining protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act but immediately propelled a fresh wave of partisan redistricting across the South. This was the entirely predictable result of a series of Supreme Court decisions that have undermined racial equality while encouraging white-majority legislatures to redraw congressional maps as a means to ensure perpetual power for the GOP.

And all this was done with self-righteous zeal in the name of "racial neutrality," good government and Constitutional jurisprudence.

The court's critics have noted how little remains of those traditional values after two decades of the Roberts court. Since the majority overturned Roe v. Wade, women saw yet another step in the diminution of their control over their own bodies and health, an attack on their autonomy that is already costing innocent lives in the most backward states. Now in Callais, Black and Latino Americans see the razing of minority political power in the most segregated regions and the return of Jim Crow, delivered by a party that countenances unabashed racism in its ranks.

Alito's justification for abandoning decades of precedent — and the clear textual purpose of the Voting Rights Act — made little logical sense. Rather than determining whether a state's congressional district map imposed the effect of a racial hierarchy on state voters, he ruled, the court would demand proof of racist intent on the part of legislators who drew that map. As Justice Elena Kagan pointed out in her dissent, the impossibility of knowing or proving what was in the minds of those legislators is obvious. It is also a completely invented standard.

Alito claimed wrongly that recent presidential elections show that the nation has progressed beyond the remedies imposed by the Voting Rights Act, because Black voter turnout was higher than white turnout in two of the most recent presidential elections. Of course, turnout for congressional elections is different in midterms — and the years that Alito cherrypicked to make his argument happened to be those when Barack Obama, America's first Black major-party presidential nominee, was on the ballot.

But with their ire provoked by what Alito described as an "unconstitutional racial gerrymander" in Louisiana, the justices feel justified in even the most dishonest discourse. That is why both Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh could support this devastating decision, despite having voted precisely the opposite way only three years ago. In the case of Allen v. Alabama, court found that state legislators had discriminated against the state's Black voters by dividing them up among seven districts to prevent the election of more than one Black member of Congress. Kavanaugh and Roberts, along with the court's liberal minority, rejected the state's argument — identical to Alito's argument now — that the plaintiffs had to prove racist intent to trigger the Voting Rights Act's protections.

The result was a new congressional map in Alabama, drawn by a special master, that offered Black voters the opportunity to elect two members — who both happen to be Democrats.

What has changed since Kavanaugh and Roberts endorsed that wholly just outcome? Only two things: The 2024 election of Donald Trump and Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, which Republicans on the court plainly aim to preserve against increasingly long odds in this year's midterm election — and the likelihood that if Democrats regain the majority in either or both chambers, then this historically corrupt Supreme Court majority will find itself confronting investigative scrutiny and legislative challenge. Should Democrats control the Senate, they will also face a strong possibility that Trump, the authoritarian they have so brazenly empowered, will be unable to nominate any more constitutional vandals of their ilk.

These right-wing justices, despite their whine about "racial gerrymandering," showed that they have no problem with partisan gerrymandering that has an undeniable racial impact on minority voters. It is fair to assume that among the reasons, beyond their own ideological loyalties, is the urge to protect their own misconduct from the embarrassing oversight that will surely ensue when power changes hands again.

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Trump folds in 'embarrassing fashion' after Congress calls his bluff

During the early months of 2026, President Donald Trump was focused on one piece of legislation in particular, the SAVE America Act, which he claimed would increase election security, but critics argued would disenfranchise millions of voters. At the time, he declared it his top priority, posting, “I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed.”

But now two months later, as the Rachel Maddow Blog points out, the president’s assertion has been proven to be categorically false. While White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt may claim that Trump “does not bluff,” it turns out that he was indeed bluffing in regard to SAVE, as not only has he signed numerous pieces of legislation since decreeing he would not do so, but the bill itself has been quietly vanished from public debate until Thursday, when it seemed to have been killed once and for all.

Two factors made passage of the bill unlikely from the get-go. First, there was the fact that it lacked support for congressional approval, as four Republicans had indicated they would side with Democrats opposing it. As this became apparent, it brought the second hurdle: an unwillingness on the part of Republican lawmakers to “nuke” the filibuster, which would eliminate the need for SAVE to reach a required 60-vote threshold. While Trump demanded they take such action, conservatives in Congress worried that it could backfire once the Democrats regain the majority, which is projected to happen in the upcoming midterms.

These obstacles have proven too great for the GOP to overcome. As the New Republic reports, “It seems that no one is coming to rescue the SAVE Act. Weeks after Donald Trump stressed to his party that passing that voter restriction bill was the ‘most important thing’ they could do, Senate Republicans have shelved the legislation entirely, unable to bypass the Democratic filibuster.”

This was corroborated by Punchbowl News, which noted, “Now, even the bill’s most outspoken GOP supporters are acknowledging that another drawn-out Senate floor debate would be a futile exercise.”

“We had a test vote. It failed,” admitted Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH). “So we’ve got to rethink what that means.”

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Republicans threaten to defy Trump as his demands threaten GOP majority

As President Donald Trump grapples with Senate Republicans over efforts to pass his agenda, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) says that the commander in chief’s allies live in an “alternative universe.”

This is according to the latest from Punchbowl Media, reporting during the run-up to a meeting scheduled for Wednesday between the president and his party’s Senators. As Punchbowl explains, “If GOP senators tell the president what they’ve been saying to reporters in the halls and discussing privately among themselves, the meeting could be high-stakes for Trump.”

That’s because many Republicans on Capitol Hill feel that Trump has “blindsided” Thune with many recent decisions, not only “derailing their shared legislative agenda but also putting their Senate majority at risk.” What’s more, constant GOP infighting over Trump’s demands that the party advance the SAVE America Act and nuke the filibuster has divided the caucus and increased its ire toward the president.

Trump doesn’t have the votes he needs for the SAVE Act — his much vaunted voter ID law that critics say will disenfranchise millions of voters — and therefore wants Republican Senators to end the filibuster that Democrats can use to block the bill indefinitely. But many Republicans are hesitant to do so, knowing the tables are likely to turn after the November midterms, in which they are expected to lose their majority in one or both Houses.

According to Thune, those in his conference who advocate caving to Trump’s demands reside in an “alternative universe” of social media, where the echochamber lends the impression that their ideas are more popular than they really are. Support for the move, he asserts, is not as one-sided as Trump seems to think. As Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) noted, both Trump and Thune hold “broad support” within the party.

Punchbowl reports that “other GOP leaders are trying to convince Trump that his focus on the filibuster and SAVE isn’t just bad for them — it’s bad for him, too. They want Trump to highlight issues that unite them, such as the tax cuts from the One Big Beautiful Bill, and go on offense against Democrats instead of sniping at each other.”

What’s more, the Senate faces more complications heading into its two-week July 4th recess as “Trump has stalled his own nomination of Jay Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence, choosing instead to keep intel neophyte Bill Pulte in the role in an acting capacity. That means a reauthorization of FISA Section 702, which has been dark for two and a half weeks, is going nowhere.”

And “on Iran, Senate GOP hawks have been openly critical of the ongoing negotiations, especially in light of the administration’s decision to lift oil sanctions.” On Tuesday, that tension increased after the Senate rebuked Trump by adopting a non-binding Iran war powers resolution, prompting his rage.

“Four Republican Losers voted with the Dumocrats, and Iran asked my people, ‘what does that all mean?’” Trump ranted on social media in response. “These Senators have just made my job more difficult, but I will get it done, one way or the other, because I always get it done!”

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'His weakest point yet': Trump rages as Senate Republicans tank his agenda

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump will meet with Senate Republicans in an attempt to press their support for his floundering legislative agenda. According to Punchbowl News, the meeting comes as Trump is at “his weakest point yet,” dragged down by controversy surrounding the war with Iran, his failed policy endeavors, his historically low polling, and infighting within his own party.

As Punchbowl explains, it’s not surprising that the temperamental president is angry at Senate Republicans as “they’re openly dismissing Trump’s legislative demands, expressing rare public anger over the Iran MOU, bucking his repeated calls to get rid of the filibuster and furious about his abrupt halting of the confirmation process for Jay Clayton, the nominee to be director of national intelligence.” Many also “see Trump’s fixation on the SAVE America Act as a strategic misstep that could cost them their majority by turning the MAGA base against GOP candidates and incumbents.”

At the same time, says Punchbowl, “Trump’s Senate allies... riled up the MAGA base online, prompting an onslaught against Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) in particular. Trump is slated to attend Wednesday’s Senate GOP Steering lunch, which is run by Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), a staunch Trump ally and one of the chief proponents of the SAVE America Act. Scott inviting Trump during this row with Thune is seen within the GOP Conference as a slight toward the South Dakota Republican.”

All of this is an effort to cajole support for SAVE, but Trump is likely to face his own slights from “free agent” GOP Senators who have been beaten by primary candidates endorsed by the president, placing them in a “nothing to lose” scenario where they can vote as they please without consequences.

This stalemate threatens not only Trump’s voter ID law, but the FISA Section 702 extension it has become linked to. For Democrats, attaching passage of the SAVE Act makes a FISA extension “a non-starter,” and Senate Republicans know it. According to Punchbowl, “Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, lamented that Trump was ‘tying all of these together and then also saying, “You’ve got to pass the SAVE America Act,” which we know we don’t have the votes for.’ As a result, the ongoing lapse in 702 authority could last well into July.”

For many Senate Republicans, hesitancy to push for the SAVE Act comes down to simple numbers. They know they have the votes to pass a FISA extension if it's tied to SAVE, and they consider the former to be absolutely vital to national security. They therefore don’t want to imperil FISA by attaching it to legislation that will doom it automatically. But according to Punchbowl, “other Republicans worry Trump will use Republicans’ failure to pass the SAVE America Act to deflect blame if the GOP suffers big losses in the midterms or use it as a pretext to call the elections ‘rigged.’”

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Inside Trump's Hail Mary pass to the Supreme Court

Last Monday, days after a federal appeals court blocked and enjoined key parts of Trump’s executive order restricting mail-in voting, Trump turned to the Supreme Court, once again, for help in rigging the midterms. Solicitor General John Sauer filed an emergency application for a stay of that injunction, claiming the appellate court prematurely ‘interfered with’ Trump’s righteous efforts to ‘promote election integrity.’

The Constitution vests control over federal elections with the states, reserving a secondary role for Congress, and an even more attenuated role for the executive branch. Under Article I, Section 2 and the 10th Amendment, states—not the president— determine who is eligible to vote.

The executive branch, by Constitutional design, has a limited role in federal elections. The founders built an intentionally decentralized structure because they knew that giving control over federal elections to the executive branch would be letting the fox guard the henhouse. This particular fox, modeling the rationale behind the design without understanding it, has been relentless in trying to eat the hens.

Trump’s unprecedented election-rigging efforts

After Trump lost the 2020 election, he got caught on tape pressing government officials in Georgia to “find” an extra 11,000-plus votes. Since his return to office, Trump has continued his unprecedented election rigging scheme through a series of actions intended to wrest control of federal elections away from the states. Ignoring the Constitution’s clear, limiting mandates, Trump has tried to arrogate control over federal elections to himself by:

Aside from these overtly illegal actions, Trump's oligarchs are spending hundreds of millions to elect candidates who won't tax their wealth, and won't enforce corporate, financial, AI, and environmental regulations they dislike. Trump’s political action committee has raised over four hundred million dollars since the 2024 election. Meanwhile, Republican super PACs have nearly twice as much cash on hand as their Democratic equivalents, and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is at it again. Undeterred by a felony probable cause finding of election bribery, Musk has emerged as one of the single largest individual donors backing Republican candidates in the upcoming midterms. He has donated $90 million to date, with far more expected.

Trump’s EO to weaponize the U.S. Post Office

The midterms are less than 100 days out. Poll after poll on the congressional generic ballot shows Democrats with an advantage, but only a slight one. Republicans’ prolific gerrymandering, coupled with their oligarch-juiced fundraising advantage, and Trump’s relentless attack on free and fair elections, outlined above, is turning what should be a blue tsunami into a reddish purple rain.

The administration’s chief legal argument now pending before the Supreme Court, as presented Monday, is that the underlying suit against Trump’s EO on mail-in voting is premature or unripe. The administration argues that Trump’s EO is merely “internal policy guidance” to agencies, and it is up to them how they implement it, therefore no harm is present, and there’s no standing to challenge it. Trump’s emergency application argues that, the injunction is premature because Trump’s Order “merely sets forth general policy guidance, leaving substantial discretion to agencies about how to implement the Order while admonishing them that they may do so only consistent with applicable law.”

Trump, doing everything he can to spread skepticism about a federal election he’s about to lose, is reaching for massive voter disruption right before the November midterms. Claiming before the Supreme Court that agencies can “only act consistent with applicable law” under his EO is a legal punt designed to run out the clock; what actions are ‘consistent with applicable law’ depends on who is doing the interpreting. Under the administration’s argument, Trump’s anti-mail-in voting EO won’t be ‘ripe’ for review until after states have begun implementing Trump’s directive and the USPS has stopped delivering ballots. By then, the election will be underway, and it will be too late for voters to do anything about it.

Ruling for Trump on his EO would be a major departure from recent Supreme Court precedent confirming that states, not the president, get to control elections, but skeptics will note that this emergency application is pending on the shadow docket, where rationale and precedent are quite often subordinated to partisan results.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.



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Republican says 'the quiet part out loud' about Trump’s SAVE Act

Republicans on social media are admitting the truth behind Democratic accusations about the SAVE Act — namely, that they want to pass the SAVE Act requiring proof of citizenship and photo ID to disenfranchise Democratic voters.

“The writing on the wall,” tweeted Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida in a message in which Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is tagged. Luna attached a flowchart which showed two paths from “Gain majority”: The first, in which the SAVE Act is not saved, equals “lose majority,” “resist other team’s agenda” and needing to fundraise “back to gain majority.”

The flowchart also shows, as an alternative if the SAVE Act fails, is a “one-party state.” This, perhaps not coincidentally, is what historians and political scientists observe could occur to Republicans’ advantage if Trump nationalizes the 2026 midterms. Because Americans with low incomes, disabilities and other disadvantages often struggle to obtain citizenship documents and photo ID despite being legitimate citizens and voters, scholars are concerned the SAVE Act would disproportionately target Democratic constituencies.

Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, who once said “I don’t care if someone is a liberal, conservative, an atheist, or whatever: don’t be the mean girl,” tweeted “Yep” in response to Luna’s flowchart post to Thune. In a similar spirit, conservative activist Scott Presler posted on Twitter/X and told Thune that “if you do not bring the SAVE America Act to the Senate floor and ultimately pass the bill into law, Republicans will lose both the House and Senate this November.” After threatening that Republicans will not vote unless the SAVE Act is passed, Presler ordered Thune to “either wield power and be remembered as a hero in the majority or lose it all with a democrat takeover as the minority.”

According to one veteran political journalist, this is Republicans “quiet part out loud.”

“The quiet part out loud,” tweeted New York Times congressional correspondent Annie Karni on Wednesday morning while sharing Luna’s flowchart. “Fail to pass Save Act -> lose majority.”

In a similar vein as Karni, Politico columnist Jonathan Martin pointed out in regard to Presler’s tweet that there were “14K likes for arguing Repubs will lose midterms if they don’t pass a voter ID and citizenship bill. Not, ya know, bc the president is hovering at or below 40% and Dems have a massive off-year turnout advantage in this era.”

He concluded, “Preposterous, sure, but is only gonna put more pressure on Sen Rs bc many of their voters are swallowing this nonsense.”

Martin posted his tweet on Tuesday at 9:18 PM Eastern Time. As of the time of this writing, at 1:10 PM ET on the following Wednesday (roughly 16 hours later), it has 54K likes.

In addition to political journalists, some of Trump’s fellow Republicans are alarmed that the president is planning on stealing the upcoming midterm elections.

“This is the first instance in which I could begin to believe that something truly spectacular is going to happen in which our 2026 midterm elections are not administered like past elections have been,” Stephen Richer, a former Republican county recorder of Maricopa County when Trump attempted to steal the 2020 election, recently told The Atlantic’s David Frum.

“I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028,” conservative historian Robert Kagan recently told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”

Former Republican consultant and Pulitzer Prize winner George F. Will summed up Trump’s midterm schemes by comparing them to his failed efforts to prove the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“Trump’s batting average?” Will wrote “.016. In Arizona, the most exhaustively scrutinized state, a private firm selected by Trump’s advocates confirmed Trump’s loss, finding 99 additional Biden votes and 261 fewer Trump votes.” As such Will wrote of Trump, “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”

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CNBC host called out on live TV for giving away the game on GOP’s SAVE Act

Conservative CNBC "Squawk Box" host Joe Kernen appeared to give away the Republican gameplan with new proposals around the SAVE Act.

Speaking to Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) on Friday, Kernen said that without the SAVE Act, "Democrats will never lose again."

The conversation initially focused on the immigration debate and a bipartisan bill crafted before the 2024 election, which Republicans ultimately blocked at President Donald Trump's direction.

Once Coons brought up that measure, Kernen quickly changed the subject to cite "conspiracy theories why you'd let in 10 million undocumented Democrats."

"They're not Democrats," said Coons said seemingly confused and laughing uncomfortably.

"I'm kidding," Kernen claimed before adding, "I'm saying that's the whole — that — and you don't want — no ID voting at the same time you let in all these illegal."

"I have to show an ID every time I vote in Delaware," Coons said.

Most states require some form of identification when voting, and most also require ID for voter registration. The GOP bill would force voters to bring an "enhanced" ID to the polls.

"But you see what I'm saying," continued Kernen. "You see what I'm saying? Democrats will never lose again if left to their own devices."

"That isn't true, as you well know," Coons replied.

"God help," said Kernen.

The GOP's Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would usher in a slate of voting restrictions beyond voter ID laws. The ID portion of the restrictions includes not only the requirement to use a photo ID to vote, but also the requirement to use only the new REAL ID. Such an ID costs around $50, depending on the state, so voting would no longer be free.

REAL ID is a new identification system being rolled out nationwide, but it isn't required in most states. The "Real ID" act was passed 20 years ago and gave citizens two decades to prepare for enhanced IDs to get on a plane. While airlines prefer it, fliers who don't have one yet can still get on a plane, but they are fined $45 for not having the enhanced "Real ID."

IDs such as a military ID, a student ID, a birth certificate, a Social Security Card, a non-enhanced driver's license, or a non-enhanced state ID would all be unusable under the SAVE Act.

Several pro-women groups have also noted that in some cases a photo ID doesn't match other forms of ID, such as a birth certificate, because women change their names when they get married. It would add additional requirements for married women to go through the process to ensure all of their documents match before registering to vote.

Trump has also called for nationalized elections, where his federal agents would take over the voting in Democratic states.

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